Professionalism?

Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only. ~Samuel Butler, Erewhon
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Where does one draw the line between professionalism and play time. Allow me to tell you this. If a publisher asks to see your manuscript, 12 pt font,1 inch margins; and to strictly adhere to the guidelines, she says; are you going to give her verdana and put little cute smiley faces at the end and say, “I thought this looked better?”

Who is the professional here? Who is the one going to publish your work? And YOU are going to tell HER how to do her job?

While there are numerous amounts of insane writers, there is not numerous markets for unprofessional writers. We’re in a recession and work needs to be done, rules and guidelines need to be adhered to. While we all need to let our hair down, peek out of our shell on occasion, we also need to know that we are going to be judged, yes judged, by our level of professional quality.

On facebook and the other social sites, there is no room for professionalism, although I am a witness to many acting in a civil nature, doing work professionally yet still maintaining an open wall that allows visitors to come and see. This is where your footprint, read yesterdays blog, is going to be seen by many if not all of the millions of FB fanatics.

Facebook has gone and changed again, once again thinking for people instead of allowing them to think for themselves. Did they ASK the people what they wanted? Of course not, their ego’s got in the way, and they barged in and placed changes on people that apparently, only they like. I think that was an unprofessional move on their part, as they vie for people who are fleeing FB in record numbers, and heading to Twitter, and places like, Google+.

To me, Twitter and Google+ doesn’t have the professional feel of facebook, (denote sarcasm here) with the LIKE buttons, the huge pics, the SHARE this button, and all of the new toys and games that are going to slow ones computer down. Facebook may be ascending but oh wait, their professionalism comes in, via ADS! Yup good ol ads that bring the folks at facebook, you guessed it, money! Hopefully many of you have admuncher to eat those ads and they never see the light of day.

I can do what I want, write and have fun on my wall, but yesterday, I was basically assaulted and badgered by a ‘supposed’ friend and professional writer? All because we were having fun? Then they went into the professional place we work and said that we were basically “bullying and bordering illegality”??? Excuse me? Real professional, STUDENT!

Well of course I wiped my wall off and with facebooks new RESTRICT policy I can now restrict people, make a list of people who can see my wall, and now I may just be able to limit the stalker(s), that watch me and read me!

I think I’m going to put f2k behind me. It is no longer a place to write, to be professional, it is a place where lay-PEOPLE want to make the decisions for the PROFESSIONALS. Call out freedom of this and freedom of that, it is a madhouse, simply made up of smileys. My point solely being, if you came to write, then write, if you came to play? Go to facebook!!!

Thank you, to those who took MY joy away. I hope you all feel real good about yourselves.

Professionalism

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." E.L. Doctorow
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There is a time for fun and a time to be professional. When submitting work from an email iliv4U@ wahooza.com, I’m sure you don’t appear like a professional to the receiving market/party.

In the writing world especially at f2k, there is a lot of fun being had by members and mentors alike. I’m wondering if they come into the course thinking, “This is a fun place.” And maybe that is why they use quirky names to register, and sometimes don’t take the guidelines and rules as serious?

To me, that is a big turn off. When I’m in the writing community, I don’t want to appear a dimbulb, I want to make the appearance of a professional and I try to relay that to the students because when they get out into the real world of submitting, and being around other professional writers, they should not have the impression that writing is just all fun, games, and chat.

Writing is about writing. Don’t get me wrong, I like to have as much fun as the next person, but there is a place and a time for fun, and there is a place and time for work. Sure you can have fun at work, but don’t make a total fool out of yourself, so that people never take you as a person who is able to be professional.

If someone were to ask me, “What do you do for fun?” I would not be able to give them an answer. I see writing and reading as fun. I see mowing the lawn as fun, watching impending storms roll over the fields as fun, stargazing, (when they’re not hidden behind the clouds of said impending storm) and spending time with my son, now that is fun.

Running around acting like a wallapalooza maniac is not my sense of fun. I take professionalism as a very serious matter. And I take other professional writers as a serious matter. I see the ones as wallapalooza’s as people that are not really getting very far in their writing, because they really don’t take it as a serious matter.

Writing is hard work. We sit for hours tapping on the keys, searching markets, sending out our work and while we’re being accepted/rejected we move forward in our career. Rejection is as much a push forward as an acceptance. Being rejected you know that it is just a matter of working harder, the same as an acceptance. The push is there to make you sit up and take notice of how serious the matter is and how serious you need to be about what it is that you love.

As a professional writer, you are allowed to have fun too, but in the right place, at the right time. Take writing as a serious profession and you will get a lot further in your aspirations.

Write Right...its what writers do. :)